On Microsoft

I was a huge hater on Microsoft back in the day. On the PC side of things, I suppose I still am. Yeah, I use Windows, but that's only because I'm too damn lazy to learn a UNIX-based OS. I parlayed that hate into the console division, until I realized the PC side and the console side of Microsoft were two very different entities. I once vowed I'd never buy an Xbox. I eventually broke that vow. I even went so far as to predict Microsoft would win this round of the console war.

Now I'm not so sure. Sony has done just about everything wrong up to this point, whereas Microsoft (seemingly) had done everything right, or so I thought. Until yesterday.

I was reading the forums yesterday and today about all the horror stories with the 360. Disc drive errors. Hard drive errors. Memory errors. Video errors. Overheating. "Unknown" errors. Hundreds, thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of dead boxes. Dead boxes that were dead because of known issues. What is Microsoft doing to fix these problems?

First off, if you're within the 90 day warranty, you're golden, cause you get a free replacement. Which is usually what it is, a replacement, rather than a repair. I suppose that's fine, especially when you're dealing with a manufacturer and not a reseller. Especially since nobody wants to wait a week or more for some shmuck to fix your shit, you just want to get back to gaming.

But if you're out of your 90 day warranty? You gotta pay $160 for your replacement. Tack on an additional 60 bucks if you want a two year extended warranty. This is especially heinous if you got a Core console, since you'd now be just $80 short of getting a brand new box.

Let me tell you: that is not the way to turn a negative into a positive. That's not the way to gain goodwill. How would you feel if you dropped $400 on a console only to have it die 3 and a half months later, a mere two weeks out of warranty, so you then had to drop another $220 to get a replacement and a guarantee of a replacement any time within the following 2 years if that one craps out too? Not to mention having to go 2-3 weeks without being able to play? I'd be pissed.

That said, I'm not pissed. Primarily because I'm not an idiot. Let me explain. I don't register shit. I don't register software, I don't register hardware, I wouldn't even be registered to vote if my parents hadn't practically forced me to 6 years ago. That's point number one. Point number two is I don't volunteer information to tech support that's irrelevant. If you don't ask me specifically about this or that, I'm not telling you anything other than what the problem is.

For example. I called MS today after work. Tech guy picks up, asks how he can help me. I explain the situation. "I've had my 360 for a couple of months (which is technically true, I just didn't say how many months), and it worked fine, until yesterday. I put in Dead Rising, played for about two minutes, and then it froze. I turned it off, let it sit for a moment, and turned it back on. Played for another two minutes, it froze again. I took out Dead Rising, put in Kameo, and rebooted. This time I played for about 30 seconds before it froze. I shut it down, and went to the support website. I tried everything there, unplugged everything, plugged it back in, tried it without the hard drive, different games, still the same problem. I couldn't play for more than a few minutes before it froze."

The tech guy says, "Ok, let me get some information." Name, serial number, address. He asks if I've registered my console. I say, "I don't think so (actually, I know I haven't)." He registers the console for me. He clarifies that I tried everything on the website, I say yes. He asks if the Dead Rising disc is clean and free of scratches. I say of course it is, I just got it two days ago. He says he'll submit a repair ticket, and send me out a box (a cardboard coffin, as it were) to ship the console in. He says since I'm still under warranty until October 19, 2006, the repair or replacement will be free. My warranty will be extended an additional 30 days once I get the system back. Total turnaround time is about 10 business days.

It's at this point I ask about an extended warranty. He says I can call back within the 30 days to get an additional year for $30, or two years for $60. I thank him for his help, the call concludes.

Am I satisfied with the way Microsoft handled my problem? Yes, but only because I'm not an idiot. People on the forums whine about how they registered their console the day they bought it, and now it's dead after 5 months, so they have to pay the $160. Or how when they talked to tech support they told the guy they got their Xbox on launch day, so registered or no, it's not under warranty. There was one guy whose box was no longer under warranty, so he opened it up to see what he could do. Failing that, he called support and tried to pay to get it fixed. Since he also told the tech guy that he had opened his box, MS refused to take it back, even with payment. Apparently when they say modifying the console in any way voids your warranty, it also voids your official service contract.

Obviously that's not what those people should have done, but there's plenty of blame to go around. A 90 day warranty? Come on, that's a slap in the face. Charging $160 for out of warranty service? That's a full-on ass-reaming. Especially for known issues.

And then there's the idiots and assholes who spouted shit all over the place earlier this year when they claimed only the launch boxes had problems, and a new version of the console had been released. Wrong. They were either talking out of their ass, or deliberately lying. There's only one version of the hardware, and whether your box was manufactured in November of 2005, or July of 2006, there's a not-insignificant chance it'll die before its time. That's BS, MS.

What Microsoft should be doing is honoring anyone who calls in with a problem, regardless of warranty. We're less than a year out from launch, folks, these things should not be failing yet. Hell, they shouldn't be failing at all; I still have an NES that my Dad bought me in 1987 that works great. And if Microsoft is so serious about gaming, they should realize gamers want to game. So forget about this "we send you a box, then we check out your system for a few days, and send you another system" shit. When a customer calls, you take his credit card number, and ship him a new system with a return box. If you don't get the busted system within a month or whatever, you charge him for the new system. A lot less downtime, and you're still protected from fraud.

I seriously hope they're hard at work on new hardware that doesn't have crippling problems. The brass claim the return rate was well below the 3-5% average, but that was back in December. I wonder if that's still the case. Even if it's at the average now, let's say MS has sold 5 million units. 5% of 5 million is 250,000. That's a pretty damn big number, and I can't help but think that its quite a bit bigger than that. And even if it is at the average, or still below it, that's not necessarily something to be excited about. Average is not what you want to be; average does not win wars.

Which is what it ultimately comes down to. Like I said, Sony has seemingly done everything wrong, but this is the first wrong step for Microsoft. If they continue to make mistakes, who knows what could happen. Here's hoping MS rights itself and Sony smacks into a brick wall.